If you had gone to sleep in early 2006 and woken up today, you would learn that the filibuster is no longer a necessary brake on the tyranny of the majority but rather is a fossilized impediment to necessary progressive change. Recess appointments no longer result in “damaged goods” but are necessary protocols to get the talented by ossified ideologues in the Senate. If raising the debt limit beyond $9 trillion was once reckless and proof of a lack of leadership, exceeding $14 trillion is sober and judicious. Iraq is no longer lost, it is our “greatest achievement.” And just as Guantanamo and Predators are no longer constitutional affronts but critical tools against man-made disasters, so too the “fat cat” Bush tax rates ceased being impediments to spreading the wealth and evolved into necessary incentives for economic revival.